The Watts Up Tour in WA

For those who are wondering, The WA leg of the Watts Up tour was thoroughly enjoyed by many. People drove up from as far as Albany to watch us in Narrogin – three hours each way on a dark foggy night. And the UWA lecture theatre was fairly packed with people including some who’d also driven over 300 km. Skeptics are passionate people. I was delighted to meet many of the commenters around Perth. The speeches were fast paced and covered so much ground. I’ve been delighted also to meet the fabulous Anthony Watts in person. David Archibald is always entertaining… The two of them have met an impossible schedule criss-crossing a continent. I’m ever so grateful they were able to make it to WA.

The Narrogin Observer is not the New York Times, but you can be sure that a front page headline like the one above (out today) will be read by thousands of people.

The hilarious Speedy (who I finally met!) sent me his thoughts on the Narrogin event:

But for me, perhaps the most telling image of the evening was Janet’s banana cake. Janet was the event organiser. Janet took the bookings for the evening, Janet organised the volunteers, she booked the hall and she cooked a banana cake to go with the cuppa at half time. She even sent us an email to tell us how to get to the hall. Janet didn’t get paid a cent.

Compare this to the Copenhagen extravangza. The money, the waste, the vanity. Where Al Gore expected $1,200 for the pleasure of shaking your hand.

At Narrogin, the real star was the message. The message is that the science of Global Warming is not only far from settled, it’s far from credible. And that we ordinary people have the responsibility to question bad science before it becomes enshrined in bad policy and a burden to future generations.

That’s so us. The cottage industry of conscientious concerned citizens who are not willing to be duped, or to let the naked grab for power get away with half-truths in the name of science. We’ll do whatever we can to make sure the baseless fears are exposed before more people are hurt and real environmental problems get worse through neglect.

…

I’ll post a little later today on my thoughts about the significant move that has recently happened that I am very pleased with. They are responding to us… they are lifting their game… small unbacked people can make a difference

67 comments to The Watts Up Tour in WA

Once again thanks for all those who helped organise the event, and the speakers… and of course the alumnus that bought me a midi before the event (can’t very well come to campus and not indulge can one?)

I have never met a West Australian farmer yet who believes in AGW. They understand climate and weather more than most climate scientists. Their livelihood depends on it. They know about UHI when they visit town. Their records are not ‘homogenised and pasteurised’, but they keep good records. And they have long memories.
Congratulations to the organizers for going to a town like Narrogin and to all you bloggers for bringing the facts to those who are not blinded by ideology.

I miss the farmers most while fighting the Green scum. The farmers and foresters used to be the ones who cared for the Land for thousands of years and it worked. They always used to be the ones whose common sense was the most reliable of all of us. Then Green lacklands of the city came being equipped with revolutionary ideology on an imaginary land created at café-bar intellectual conversation sessions and mobbed the Land as a new opportunity for a revolution when the imaginary revolution seeking working class had failed. They expropriated politically the Land care from them in whose hands the Land crops, then declared themselves self-appointed land representatives of the Land instead of the farmers and got down to the bloody revolution in name of the Land, planet, wholly nature … But the ones owning to which the Land keep us alive are mostly calm.

I am not sure which is worse… the do-gooder latte Greenies or the industrial farming techniques. Have a look at Food Inc and see what has become of the mainstrem farming in the USA. It is frightening stuff. It made me look for a farmer’s market for the first time in earnest.

I trust factory farming isn’t quite that bad in Australia, but fear it might be in some sections of the agricultural sector.

PS> I wish there was a Food Inc light version of the film… because my wife would not want to watch the animal cruelty in the original, but she would like to see the rest of it. Food Inc as it stands is not for the faint hearted.

I don’t see how science is related to today’s article. I try to stay on topic. I didn’t notice much science in your comment either – just the usual name calling.

How about I set the ball rolling – my previous comment’s link has a vaguely amusing scientific question posed by one your camp’s plants at the UWA’s forum: “If CO2 lagged temperature rise by 800 years, wasn’t the current CO2 rise just a lagged response to the Medieval Warm Period?”

I see some 1000? warmers were paid to attend a climate change conference in Surfers Paradise. They were all Government employees and environmental activists having a three day gabfest at taxpayers expense. Our dear Senator Wong was once again warning all that there was no time to lose before the planet was overwhelmed by CO2. She also thought us sceptics should be locked up for endangering the world. I guess Surfers would be more comfortable than the minus 11 at Armidale or the minus 4.8 at Richmond. I suspect the sudden offer from Senator Bob Brown of a five point plan to the PM for a carbon tax has a lot to do with the realisation that the wheels are falling off the great hoax. No it is a scam not a hoax. Scams are designed to deprive ordinary people of their hard earned.
I am glad that you all got to see Anthony, David and co. I thought they were impressive. David’s little book has been read by many Wingham people through the e version “Solar Cycle 24″. All thought it provided a better explanation than the IPCC crap.

The tide is turning and when SC24 gets going MMCC should be dead. Watch for the next alarmist pronouncements. No doubt Tim Flannery will be in the van. He still wants his tax payer 90million to drill some holes.

Got better things to do right now. I meant to say troll and switched to tool /shrug. You launched onto this site with troll-like behaviour from the very beginning. Clearly you do not want a learned debate, and I am not going to answer a strawman just for your pleasure so you can copy and paste from your superhero site Skeptical Science. Judging from the calibre of your postings to date you are not in the slightest bit interested in debating science … you are merely here to get a negative response. Hence trolling.

@Lawrie #11
Actually the Greens have been advocating a carbon tax for a long time now, so I wouldn’t call it sudden.

With typical Murdoch aplomb I noticed the Australian completely botched the reporting of Brown’s proposal.
See if you can spot the difference between the actual proposal (here) or the Australian’s version of it (here) (and trust me, the difference is a biggy). So once again this country gets pwned by a couple of fat-cat mining execs given a mouthpiece through the media monopolies, whilst actual policy and debate is sidelined.

I’m fully aware that my posts will engender a negative response, but that is not what I post them.
I read an article that is clearly off-base, followed by 100s of comments from the regulars high-fiving each other, but noone points out the flaws in the post. The modern internet is all about self-correction. You make a mistake in your post, it gets corrected in the comments. Brilliant system!

BTW. I liked Food Inc too. I also know quite a few farmers (mostly Victorians) and miners (mostly South Africans). Some of them are worried about climate change… some not. Of course in Victoria and South Africa there has been severe, unprecedented drought that has helped shift opinions in a certain direction. I don’t think farmers necessarily know much about global climate patterns, although they certainly have a lot worth listening to in regards to solutions, impacts, adaptation etc. Its a pity for the farmers that are not interested, because in the long run, when things get hot, its not my job banging out computer code in the city that’s going to come out worst – it’ll be the jobs that actually rely on a predictable climate that suffer.

It’s a blog, and JoNova has made a quick entry on the atmosphere of the event in Narrogin and how the general public have responded to hearing another point of view. Nothing else in there about graphs, or half-truths…

Did you ‘actually’ read the post, especially the last two sentences before deciding to comment? Or, did you just think ‘Hey, this is a lame blog entry. I’ll flame it ’cause it’s, like, lame!’

Onya Jo…. I would have loved to have zipped down to Townsville when Mr Watts and Co were there, but alas…

cbp:
June 30th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
@Bulldust #9

I don’t see how science is related to today’s article. I try to stay on topic. I didn’t notice much science in your comment either – just the usual name calling.

How about I set the ball rolling – my previous comment’s link has a vaguely amusing scientific question posed by one your camp’s plants at the UWA’s forum: “If CO2 lagged temperature rise by 800 years, wasn’t the current CO2 rise just a lagged response to the Medieval Warm Period?”

Do you agree?

Care to discuss?

Aye, I’ll discuss it….. The CO2/temperature correlation was the AGW Proponents great scientific proof back in the 1980′s…. When the ice core resolution got better it was found to be opposite…. Now seeing as that the standard model for Climate Change is Natural Variation. It is up to the AGW proponents to show the observations of temperature rise are consistent with the AGW hypothesis…. As far as I am concerned, science is unable to measure the effects of the anthropogenic component of CO2 on the climate system, if there is any there at all, as it is lost in the noise of background natural variation.

It’s up to you guys to show and prove CO2′s effects…. Not the Sceptics. We just pointed out the correlation was ’round ass backwards…. awkward fer youse guys. But that’s not our fault.

Your AGW CO2/temp correlation didn’t gell, so don’t point to climate mysteries and get us sceptics to explain them for you…. Science doesn’t know what triggers ice ages yet. Or why there was a Holocene optimum, or a LIA…. But my guess is, that it has stuff all to do with CO2.

I think you sold yourself short in this article. Those who made it to the WA sessions would no doubt understand by now the difference between DeSmog Blog (a blog run by a PR firm and funded by — guess who?) and sites such as this one, Watts Up, Bishop Hill etc. They would know that the alarmist side receive $3000 in grants and handouts for every dollar the sceptics get. And yet we’ve got them scared. Scared enough (if Lawrie @ 11 is reporting correctly) for Penny Wong to be running taxpayer-funded propaganda sessions and threaten to imprision people for – thinking. What sort of government is this? Some sort of Joseph Stalin/Pol Pot reincarnation? (My words, no Jo’s BTW)

David Archibald gave an excellent presentation of his book “Solar Cycle 24″. (As well as helping with the dishes, by the way.) The gist of it is that there is a good quality correlation between length of solar cycle and the subsequent changes to climate. By his reckoning (and he’s doing a better job than NASA at the moment) we’d better invest in woolen underwear. And the Canadian (and I guess Ukranian) wheat belts are about to be severely reduced in area thanks to the coming cool. This will be a very very serious issue.

Anthony Watts demonstrated the simply horrible condition of the US surface monitoring system. Unfortunately, it’s pretty typical of surface weather stations world-wide. The bias introduced by the Urban Heat Island effect and the poor siting and maintenance of the weather stations would alone cover a sizable chunk of the measured temperature rise of the late 20th century. He showed the painstaking nature of his work and applauded the work of the 650 unpaid volunteers who assisted him.

The theme of all 3 speakers was that ordinary people can and do make a difference. Appropriate for us all.

cbp @ 16
it’ll be the jobs that actually rely on a predictable climate that suffer. I farmed lucerne for forty plus years on the same farm. I never saw two seasons the same. Similar but hardly predictable. Climate, weather, call it what you will no one can forecast accurately one day in advance let alone season to season. As for predictions 100 years hence, impossible. The chance of catastrophic cooling is just as probable as warming over the next century. Indeed I would rather put my faith in David Archibald’s “Solar Cycle 24″ than anything coming from the IPCC.

I also consider the GFC came at just the right time to bury the ETS and such like foolishness. The folk on struggle street are not happy with the price hike in power, water and gas which kicks in tomorrow. They won’t take kindly to a 40% hike on top of that so Bob Brown can say he helped save the planet from a problem that never existed. Nope. The games up I’m afraid. You and your mates will have to dream up another horror story. By the time all the lefty teachers are taught how to indoctrinate another generation of babies even you will be retired and living on a pension paid for by the folk who weren’t fooled.

In any scientific endeavor where causality is involved we use the scientific method to elucidate the situation and accept or reject the null hypothesis. There is so little actual science in the AGW claims and fear-mongering that they should all be taken to task for fraud. Everything is implied or insinuated and even though “causes” are less relevant than “information” that can be extracted from the test data,we must always ensure that the data is correct and reliable and that an agenda is not driving the methodology.
Our future depends on it.

Speedy, the Canadian wheat belt has already been effected. There has been massive rains and flooding through the whole region this spring and cooler temperatures.

Our whole basics of understanding planetary science is incorrect due to missing a vital piece of information. Not a single scientist, physicist or mathematician has included mechanics into our understanding of science. The biggest flaw is the mechanics of rotation and how this effects climate, evaporation, wind, currents, magnetic field, growth, time, speeds, changes in axis, wobble, etc.
Infusing a planet with energy does not mean it will rotate and use energy forever as science has incorporated now.

Albert Gore – in “The Inconvenient Truth” noted the link but failed to mention that the changes in CO2 FOLLOWED the changes in temperature. The chemical reason for this is because cold water sucks CO2 from the atmosphere, whereas hot water releases it. The alarmists don’t have an explanation for why Al Gore is either a) Dumb or b) a Liar. But they do try to explain the correlation by some sort of convoluted lag between them whereby the temperature and CO2 are somehow out of sychnronisation with other.

The alarmist response is not a satisfactory answer on the grounds of Occam’s razor, but also because it fails to explain why if CO2 drives temperature, and temperature drives CO2, we haven’t been broiled already?

Bulldust, be careful about the Food Inc hype. Being part of productive agriculture, I know first hand that we take excellent care of our animals, and that much of the “information” in that “documentary” is just alarmism. I’ve worked around cattle all my life in many different facilities and circumstances. Antibiotics are used responsibly to treat ill or injured animals. Withholding periods are adhered to, to ensure that any medication is out of the animal’s system prior to slaughter. We produce a good, safe, nutritious product here and in the United States, with increasingly excellent animal welfare standards, thanks to people like Temple Grandin and Bud Williams, and the multitudes of farmers who really do (and always have!) cared for their land and animals. I encourage everyone to be sceptical of more than just AGW.

And thanks for the compliments on the banana cake, Speedy. You’re welcome in Narrogin any time!

I attended the meeting in Adelaide last Thursday and was impressed with the two speakers David and Anthony and also the questions from the audience, including from several young people.

The leaflet from the Climate Sceptics Party is very useful. It states that the ETS symbolically reducing CO2 by one millionth will cost Australia $50 Billion per year. That’s $4550 per taxpayer. To me it’s a huge paradox that the government want my children, soon to be entering the workforce, to pay this huge amount for something that is both not a problem and worse, not their fault! The perceived CO2 “problem” results from the actions of their ancestors who get off scott free. In Copenhagen Mr Rudd called it “the greatest moral issue of our time”. What? The use of our children for emotional blackmail purposes is sickening.

Time-frame wise it might ultimately be a good thing, in a perverse sort of way, this possible move from Immediate Action to more one of Gradualism? From a news report re the Gold Coast convention (banana cake, what banana cake!?);

“Professor Schneider, who has been an adviser to seven US administrations from President Nixon to President Obama, had meetings in Canberra last week with senior government and departmental officials.

He said Australia needs a sequence of steps to implement a carbon tax on a user-pays principle, at some time in the future, after a consensus has been reached.

‘Maybe what you start doing tomorrow is start implementing a set of building codes so all new construction has to have more stringent standards for windows and insulation,’ he said.

‘Why not start with the things that might be a little more easy politically to achieve, give you more initial bump, then work your way toward the tougher one.’”

Now you’ve made the invitation, we might head over to Narrogin just to soak in the atmosphere for a while. Why not? What little we had this week was enough to whet the appetite…

Your/Narrogins hospitality was a metaphor for the whole event. Without detracting from the technical skill of the speakers, it was the fact that they, like you, were prepared to give of their time and talents so freely that demonstrated the integrity and sincerity of the people involved. Without that, the best we could hope for is good science in the hands of bad people…

I am not sure which is worse… the do-gooder latte Greenies or the industrial farming techniques.

If you drive in the country and see a field, We all know you have no way of knowing if it is “a large corporate farm” or a family farm. We know you can’t tell.
I can tell that you haven’t butchered chickens, cleaned fish and have a comparison to tell us if factory processing is bettor or not. We need schools to take children to farms and factories so that don’t get limited to propoganda.
You also need to watch an alligator do his corporate farming practices on a wildebeast for his dinner. Then watch the deer enter your arugula patch and use it for a potty.
Vegetarians crave organic vegies raised in pristeene gardens where the soil is nourished with animal dung instead of a bag of fertilizer.
Yum.

I guess that depends on how one looks at it. I would contend that there are thousands of people who have invested very heavily -both monetary and career wise- in carbon. And I sense there is a hell of a lot of fear there.

CARBON FEAR, it’s the fear you feel when the fear you’re peddling isn’t fearing the people.

Naa. The paradoxical kinds I can’t figure are the guys who go to town telling people that the sea level is going to rise by zillions of feet in the next century then buy up on beach side mansions. What they say and what they do are quite different things. That smacks of hypocracy.

I’d like to live on some land but the best we can do is a few square metres where we grow our herbs (nothing exotic or illegal by the way), some lemons, oranges, the odd spud and some tomato’s when the seasons are good. I need that connection – we’re country people at heart.

On the other hand, I often wonder. If we’re not supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?

BTW. I have this great cajun steak recipe. If the old “lawnmower” shuffles off this mortal coil, then this recipe can tenderise the toughest of steaks and it tastes a million dollars. If the steaks are tough and the times are grim, then this can even work on your old work boots! I’ll send it though to Jo tomorrow.

Just a comment for those who noted Bob Brown’s offer to the new PM. It occurred to me that Bob is playing a clever bit of politics.

I gather there has been a leakage of “true AGW believers” from the ALP to the Greens who were aghast at Kevin for postponing the implementation of the CPRS/Carbon tax. All very good for bolstering a minority party but hardly desirable for a major party suffering a decline in the polls.

Now that Julia Gillard is in the chair to at least look like a re-freshment of the party brand some of Bob’s new friends may be having a second thought.

By making the very public offer as he did, he has at the very least bolstered his “statesman” stocks. (well at least in some eyes)

Further, he has put JG in a position where she has less wriggle room during an election campaign to be fuzzy about her intentions in prosecuting a carbon tax. It will take all of her legal eloquence & political dexterity to keep all sides of the AGW debate believing that their arguments deserve some consideration.

To top it off, I doubt that the ALP number-crunchers will have any doubts whatsoever of the price of Green preferences. Oh to be a fly on the wall when those discussions are in progress!

Mark D, ta for the clarification. Speedy, my meaning was that…what did Winston say many moons ago – “Perhaps this is the end of the beginning”.
Seeing signs of gradualism is possibly not a bad thing in the overall context, bearing in mind the haste and shrillness to date – think about it in terms of another two or three years of the weather we have had this last year gone…and sounds like Sol won`t be ramping up for a while, eh?

All very well, but paying a carbon tax isn’t going to cheer Gaia up one little bit! Nature doesn’t care because (as we know) the CO2 is irrelevant. On the face of it, a carbon tax is more palatable because it doesn’t feed the greedy bankers so much and there’s not the exit fees which will happen once the government decides this policy has gone past its use-by date.

On the other hand, taxes tend to hang around as well. Australian Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Income Tax was introduced in 1942 as an EMERGENCY WAR TIME MEASURE! Guess what – we’ve still got it and it’s not going away. Once the government gets a nice little earner, it’s pretty hard to remove it. Such would be the carbon tax.

cbp: @10
…
How about I set the ball rolling – my previous comment’s link has a vaguely amusing scientific question posed by one your camp’s plants at the UWA’s forum: “If CO2 lagged temperature rise by 800 years, wasn’t the current CO2 rise just a lagged response to the Medieval Warm Period?”

The phrase “vaguely amusing scientific question” is, by itself, devoid of any real content. However, having forced myself to read a number of pro-AGW books at the local “progressive” book store, I can interpret this for those with normal mental processes (i.e., not cultists):

Pretending a superior amusement with someone’s arguments is a common tactic among the AGW alarmists when:
A) The argument is well supported by fact;
B) The argument is inconsistent with (and especially if it refutes) the AGW hypothesis;
and,
C) The Alarmist hasn’t a clue how to actually respond in a rational manner.

This method of “arguing” is, of course, completely devoid of any rational content, only serving to maintain the fantasy world of the cultist by insulating him/her from having to address inconvenient facts.

If you really want to discuss this, cbp (which I doubt), try responding to J.Hansford at 18.

Of course, rational thinking can lead to heresy if you are a committed Warmer, so it’s best avoided — confine yourself to cut and pasting from RealClimate.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

(Speech in November 1942)

I agree that a carbon tax is less wasteful than the ETS (fewer sticky fingers getting involved, probably) but it’s still a tax on fresh air. If CO2 has no detrimental effect, why impose a punitive tax on it? Apart from the fact that governments around the world have hocked themselves to the eyebrows and need to find a new revenue source.

I think part of Brown’s change of heart may be linked to a cartoon in the Australian today. It shows Gillard saying – “I don’t believe in God”. And in the next frame: “I find it hard enough to believe in Global Warming.” I wouldn’t be surprised if the AGW scam in Australia unravelled – but it needs a ground swell of opinion to get to the politicians first.

I might add (to cbp @ 10), that pretended amusement, as an arguing technique, besides being logically irrelevant has no persuasive power. It’s only use in a public forum, therefore, is to make the author feel better about himself and his logically unsupportable beliefs. It certainly has the side effect of telling the rest of us how bankrupt your belief system is.

As you know, I am proud of my work in the energy industry. Had Copenhagen succeeded we would be living in the stone age to appease Gaia and all for an almost immeasurable reduction in temperatures. If temps were to increase the amount of reduction would well be within the error bars. Nobody would have noticed. Copenhagen failed as it needed to. At least Watts is telling the truth and fighting the good fight.

As it happens I didn’t actually say the phrase “There is no fear in carbon.”. The journalist must have had to work pretty fast, because there are a few minor things I would have fixed: I also didn’t say “trillions of dollars are being invested…” I quoted the CFTC about how the market would become 2 trillion dollars a year… but all in all, I can’t complain. She’s captured the big gist of the message and that’s what matters most. Oh, and I’m a former associate lecturer, not a “lecturer”. I would have fixed that too… but she sat through the whole event, asked good questions, and got the front page. We can’t get much better than that!

“If CO2 lagged temperature rise by 800 years, wasn’t the current CO2 rise just a lagged response to the Medieval Warm Period?”

There are several forcings affecting climate. They include, but are not limited to, solar output, the atlantic multidecadal oscillation, pacific decadal oscillation, volcanoes, etc. CO2 is a minor trace gas that will have very little effect on climate if levels continues to rise. The little ice age was associated with a period of low solar activity. The solar output is now coming off of a major peak. It is all irrelevant in the great scheme of things as we are almost certainly soon going to go back into an ice age. This could start tomorrow or it could take a few thousand years but it will almost certainly happen.

Whatever the wording, it is basically a consumption tax on energy: fuel oils and coal fired electricity, mostly. We are to believe that the money will be returned to the community through paying foresters to replant trees earlier than they would normally do.

Sounds reasonable – in theory. We will have to wait to see what the unintended consequences are, for there will be some.

Some time ago, I asked the question, “Why does the [NZ National Party] government persist with the idea of an ETS, when the underlying science has been shown to be invalid?”

The answer I got was telling: “New Zealand is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol [signed under a Labour/Green/Maori "coalition", from memory]. This protocol [blah, blah ...]. Overseas trade is reliant on New Zealand meeting its international commitments [blah, blah].”

The Kyoto protocol expires in 2012, so the way I read things is that the NZ ETS is the minimum they could do in the circumstances, with an intent to remove it in a couple of years.

But, it is a consumption tax, just like the Goods and Services Tax (in fact, GST will be applied to any passed-through Carbon tax), so what are the odds of this being repealed in 2012? Not good.

From an Australian perspective, you guys have a Labour government, which will probably need a coalition with the Greens after the coming election. I guess you are all doomed.

Tongue in cheek note on NZ Politics for our northern hemisphere friends: National are a slightly left of centre party, Labour are further left of centre, the Greens are in the left outfield, and the Maori “provide” their votes to whomever is in power, as long as it benefits their people. The Act Party (one member) is Right of Centre, and has nobody to play with.

My comment was really just a dig at the political manoeuvres. It strikes me as something like a coup attempt in the Titanic’s band over the tune they should be playing while their feet are getting wet.

I don’t think I am eloquent enough to properly express my feelings about the AGW fraud or specifically who & what I see as the real drivers of the Cap & Trade-Carbon Tax Gravy Train.

It is extremely disturbing to contemplate the effects of a carbon tax in a country like Australia with its size stretching the infrastructure & services, particularly when most of the foreign earnings maintaining our lifestyle & standard of living are gleaned out on the thin end .

I well recall the deal John Howard made when he proposed the GST & offered to distribute the lot amongst the states in return for the revoking a whole raft of state based taxes. The premiers all chorused “yes please, can we have some more !”

However after the fanfare died down & we the tax payers all got used to the idea I guess we all quietly forgot to push our states for their part of the deal ( too busy watching soap operas I guess). As with all governments, you get the impression that taxes never go away & that bureaucracies look after themselves (& their budgets) first.

From where I sit in the peanut gallery, I watch in awe! Keep it up guys!

We simply say, show us the evidence and won’t accept let’s pretend numbers as evidence. Its also important that we have become good at poking holes in their let’s pretend evidence. Something has to give.

Just remember: he who is free never submits, he who submits was never free.

Stay free and they will destroy themselves. Although I will admit that I am not beyond giving them a push once in a while.

I don’t think farmers necessarily know much about global climate patterns, although they certainly have a lot worth listening to in regards to solutions, impacts, adaptation etc.

Reasonable point but what farmers know quite a lot about is climate patterns at the regional level and how woefully inadequate the experts at interpreting events at this level. Simple example, on ABC radio in Adelaide, Australia, yesterday we had some guru prattling on about how rainfall in SA was 30% below average for the year – proof of AGW etc. etc. Sounds grim but couldn’t be further from the truth because total rainfall is less important than adequate rain at the right time. Season broke early April, had good follow up rain and pasture and crops are brilliant. Some good spring rain will be ideal but even without this it wont be that bad a year. Simple put statistics without context are meaningless.
Before last year we had a five year spell when the season broke late in May, early to mid April is ideal, and there was either to much rain, run off stuffed up seeded pastures, or follow up rain was too late are retarded yield.
Last year was a great year, we more than doubled our normal crop. Again there was a hue and cry because we had a heat wave in early November. Some saw this weather others as proof of AGW like Professor Barry Brooks, Uni of Adelaide, post on his BNC blog. Funny thing the heat was at a perfect time for curing hay crops, even funnier we had a summer where the number of days over 35C was well below average. Sent a polite email to Brooks but for some strange reason failed to reply or post on the good news.

Just remember when you are sitting in front of your computer screen banging away if a regional weather event concerns you have a word with a farmer before getting your nickers in a knot.

Its a pity for the farmers that are not interested

I can only comment about Australia where this applies more to your corporate groups in search of maximum profit at minimum cost that it does to your average small farmer. Small farmers have either adapted or gone belly up. The reason is quite simple we have been screwed by middle men, generally corporate, or retailers, mainly large supermarkets. In a way this is good because we have become much better at pasture conservation and renewal while reducing chemical inputs to a minimum. I produce beef and over the last four years while inputs have risen sharply farm farm gate prices have reduced by roughly 10% while retail prices soared. It really pisses me off because I’m a carnivore but wont eat what we produce on the property. I might have the odd grumble but overall I am contented because lifestyle is far better than monetary gain.
Incidentally, I spent fourteen years in the computer industry, for sanity’s sake I can recommend the change. I had a fair bit to do with computer modeling which is why I have a low opinion of the scenarios generated by GCMs.
In terms of history, in many areas you will find family’s that have been around for many generations and have accurate local weather records. Down the road from us Bill’s family had run a dairy for 150 years and they have records for the whole time. Nothing regarding today’s climate falls outside of natural variation and some periods have been far worse that recent decades.
Rather than getting all your information from armchair experts you should speak to the odd farmer, were generally approachable and friendly and you might learn a thing or two.

Farming has been our livihood since 1853. Production has never been higher than at present. Before anyone starts on about fertilizers and herbicides, except for a ten year period in the late seventies, we haven’t used fertilizers and only used some broadleaf supression when establishing lucerne crops. Irrigation played a major role but the main drivers were in fact higher temperatures and I suspect higher levels of CO2. The seventies brought winters of hard frosts and late season starts to summer plantings. We are certainly enjoying longer growing seasons at the moment. If SC24 is as predicted a return to shorter growing seasons is just around the corner. Keep in mind the population increase over the past thirty years and there is a real chance of food shortages. Not here but in the NH.

I agree with allen that armchair experts are the last resort when it comes to gaining real information. As for the academics that infest our universities, they are there because they have no role in the real world and in most cases would never survive the harsh reality that is commercial life. As for the absolutely disgusting way in which the CSIRO and BoM are complicit in spreading propaganda based on extremely poor science and even poorer records, they are beyond contempt.

Lawrie @65
Totally agree with you. What people easily forget is when our experts stuff up and we are left with the problem. Cane Toads are a classic example they were introduced into Australia based on advice given to the Sugar industry by the CSIROand this is by no means the only example.

cbp@10 I am a bit late with this as I have only just started to read this post. Because of the lack of research into all aspects of climate change due to the hijacking of the debate by the “It’s all the fault of CO2 crowd” it is quite possible that the rise in CO2 during the 20th century is due to the medieval warm period. There is still little knowledge about the heat tranfer mechanisms of the deep ocean areas of the planet and how long they retain heat for. It is quite possible that the ocean warming of the 20th century, which has now reversed, and the subsequent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have nothing to do with current activity. This may be why the increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations do not match the calculated amount of CO2 emissions from anthropogenic sources. The saying “many a true word spoken in jest” comes to mind. Maybe if the current decline in ocean temperatures and heat content, as measured by the Argos bouy network, will mean a slowing or reversal of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.